Ideas Freshly Leaked From My Mind

In the kingdom of Yo’Asse, Buss’Tuh Capp reigns with an iron fist. His goal is to dominate all of Shebang.
An unlikely hero is found in a young man from Crappe, Bagg. While in the village of Dafuq, the ever-egnimatic She sent young Bagg to seek out the great wizard, Watt. So Bagg of Crappe sought out Watt in Dafuq. Because that’s what She said.
The great wizard sent Bagg on a quest to stop Buss’Tuh Capp in Yo’Asse. He was sent to find the ultimate of the legendary weapons. For though there be blades aplenty by names like Tiger’s Fang and Trollsbane, one did not truly know defeat until one has known the dishonor of being slain with the Rubber Ducky…

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The Killing Joke. Written by Alan Moore. Drawn by Brian Bolland. Published by DC Comics. Hated by many. Loved by many more.

It’s about to be adapted into a direct to DVD animated feature for probably a PG-13 audience featuring Mark Hamill coming out of retirement (he quit voicing the Joker during the Arkham Games) to voice his iconic role as the Joker, and Kevin Conroy wants to voice the Batman! It’s a comic fan’s wet dream. So why are so many people up in arms against it?

The controversy over The Killing Joke has been abuzz in the background probably since its publication. It is often cited as the best Batman story, best Joker story, and a major turning point for the classic Barbara Gordon Batgirl. That last one is where the controversy comes in.

If you haven’t read it, please do so before finishing this article. It’s okay, I’ll wait.

You see, the Joker escapes Arkham to prove to Batman that all it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. We also get to see a possible origin story for the Joker. While many theories have been done and many more are still coming out, this one is the fan favorite that tops the list. This origin story sees the Joker as a family man left widowed and childless.

To accomplish his goal, he invades the apartment of Commissioner James Gordon, where his daughter, Barbara, is over for a visit. When the Joker rings the doorbell, Barbara answers the door. The Joker shoots Barbara while his goons subdue James. After James is dragged off, the Joker begins to unbutton the injured Barbara’s blouse. It should be noted that he was wearing a camera around his neck. Everything else that happens is implied, as we switch immediately to the next scene and don’t see Barbara again until she is visited by Batman in the hospital. It is assumed that some form of sexual assault occurred.

As it turns out, Jim Gordon is the “sane man” that he’s trying to drive mad. To accomplish this, Jim is beaten, stripped, humiliated, bound, walked on a leash, and sent through the Joker’s darkride which has been lined with nude pictures of Barbara lying in her own blood.

Batman comes and saves the day, Jim Gordon does not succumb, etc. In the course of the book, Jim Gordon is expected to just shake off his trauma and in later books, he is back to business as usual. What happens to Barbara? That’s where things get good.

As The Killing Joke was set up in a way where it could’ve been ignored as non-canonical, DC had options. They could have just pretended it didn’t happen (the most likely course), they could’ve dropped Barbara from the books, or they could’ve just left her as a librarian (her day job) in a wheelchair. They went for the unexpected. Gail Simone wrote excellent stories while consulting Dr. Andrea Letamendi which explored Barbara’s PTSD and eventually turned the wheelchair-bound Barbara into a new type of crimefighter, Oracle.

Basically DC said, what happened stuck. Barbara was scarred and came back stronger than before. She was no longer just a two-dimensional extension of a male legacy hero. She was now carving out a new path for herself.

Many people laud DC and Gail Simone for the Oracle storylines in one breath, and decry The Killing Joke in the next. Don’t they see how hypocritical that is? You cannot have Oracle without The Killing Joke! We all wish that tragedies didn’t happen, but they do. And it is what we do with that tragedy that forges us. If we are to create relateable characters, so too it must be for them.

Many cry out, “But not that! You cannot depict sexual assualt! That’s insensitive to the victims!” Here’s the funny thing about that: to date, not one person raising that cry that I have heard has come out as a rape victim. Also, during Twitter’s #changethecover controversy, many rape victims came out in SUPPORT of The Killing Joke. One such survivor is Piper Steed, who was very publicly vocal and open in #changethecover about her own rape experience, the recovery, her PTSD, and how The Killing Joke HELPED HER COPE. Note: she cited The Killing Joke. While the subsequent Oracle storyline was instrumental, it was The Killing Joke that she credited with helping her. It was one of her prized possessions that she regretted having to leave behind when she moved, it was one of her favorite gifts she recieved, she wanted to buy the sadly cancelled variant cover homage to it, and she is stoked about the upcoming adaptation.

There should be NO trauma that is off the table for a writer to use. If we do not depict the adversity, how then can we depict the triumph over it? Every story is built on some form of conflict. Characters are defined by how much they overcome. Who wants to limit the strength of a character? By limiting the obstacles depicted, one limits how much the character’s strength can be built, tested, and/or displayed.

“But you can’t display that kind thing against women!” Yeah, you can. Not only that, but such stories MUST exist if for no other reason than it has helped many real women deal with similar problems. It is a tool for depicting strong women and empowering them later. Besides, are we to gloss over what happened to Jim Gordon in the story? Or Jason Todd in A Death In The Family? “But they had agency! That’s different!” I’ve yet to encounter anyone who can explain to me the “agency” that those two male characters had and Barbara didn’t. And no, male does not automatically equal “agency”.

There are many classic, powerful stories out there that depict the worst this world has to offer. They are also the stepping stones by which the best the world has to offer can be presented. For the very best that this world has to offer is not in the good times, or the dull times, it is in the darkest of moments that the best shines through. That is why we cannot limit what kinds of violence, or difficulties, or means, or charater types, or ANYTHING else a writer may use! Sure, we could conceiveably limit the offensive material, if we could all agree on what’s offensive. But the moment we do, we remove not only the extremities of putrid crap that can be written, but the best that can be written as well. Any experience that has been had, and any experience never had that can be dreamt, all of these MUST be able to be depicted in ANY medium. You never know who could benefit.

For those of you who don’t know yet, Asheley Madison is the most despicable dating site I have seen. It is exclusively for married people looking to have an affair. They have recently been hacked.
The group that hacked this awful site have leaked the real names of some of the site’s members and are offering all of the names and nude pictures of members to the highest bidder. Karma, right?
Wrong. I cannot and will not defend cheating. It is wrong. So are doxxing and revenge porn, which this essentially is. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
True, the members of this sleazy site have no room to complain, but these hackers are no heroes. Being GG sympathetic on Twitter, I know that doxxing is NEVER OK. Nor is the release of someone’s nude pictures without their consent.
The only possible “good guys” in this are perhaps the poor spouses who were cheated on and their kids.

I called out to my son as he headed off to school to take standardized tests last week. We had heard horror stories from other parents about how their kids were filled with anxiety over being assessed, curling up into crying balls on the floor. To prevent this problem, we didn’t talk about the exams at all, save for this one piece of advice.

Later that afternoon, Jake came bounding in, filled with energy.

“How was your test today, buddy?” I asked.

“Good,” he chirped.

I prodded, looking for more detail. “Just good?”

“Yeah. I’m white.”

“Huh?”

“The test says I’m white.”

“What do you mean?” I was confused, wondering if this was a new category on his color-coded behavior chart. Or maybe they had already received their test results and he was in the “white” range.

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Today, I delivered a paper to everyone on my route. Regardless of normal delivery schedule. Then, I worked my other job for an extra hour. Not where I wanted to be.

Did I want to be home? To enjoy a cookout with friends and fam? That’s a given any other day.

No. I had somewhere else I wish I could’ve been. I wanted to go to Alger.

Alger, Ohio. The center that draws my family back again. A small town you may never have heard of.

I wanted to go to Preston, to walk the stones. Too many for a man my age. I’d recall the military first, then the civilians. My grandfathers, grandmother, great relations, my father, and uncles. One in a grave far too small. I never knew him, but would’ve liked to.

Onward into town, I’d pass my great aunt’s old place. I’d hang a right and pass ‘tween the funeral home and the church. I would not see the school you see. I would see the school that was. With a playground that never closed, full of swings and slides. Of merry-go-rounds and teeter-totters. Monkey bars and balance beams round out the set. I’d see myself and my sisters, rolling in the grass, down the hill out front.

I’d turn left, onto the red brick main street, and pass the old Shadley place, Grandma’s former dwelling, the Waughs, and so on. I’d soon reach the memorial of those from the town who had served. I’d park at the general store next door and walk to the decommissioned cannon holding it’s eternal vigil over the village. I’d sign the guest book and search for a grandfather’s name etched into the stone.

Soon, I’d come to the strange gravel path that leads beyond sight in either direction and remember the tracks that once lay here. I’d turn around before I reached where my other grandmother lived. She’s since moved, and will move again soon. She will be close to mom.

Did I ever mention that as a child, my imagination was once so vivid, that it bordered on hallucination? I remember dreaming of a circus, only to wake to the nightmare of a tiger in my room! He wasn’t there, of course, but I saw him all the same. I could point to him in the room. These days my imagination pulls no such trick, but it would come close as I slowly cruise my way back. Scenes of what was, memories of the past. They would impose themselves over the scenery as I drive by places from my youngest days.

I would turn left down the alley, though the next street was only a house away down the empty streets. Old habits, I guess. As I pass grandma’s garage, I remember the Smurf face that was once painted on the faded and peeling orange paint. Right at the next and last street. I’d go until I saw the single-story place where my uncle lives. I’d pull in the drive, and as I got out of my car, I’d not see what you would see. For a briefest moment, I’d see the two-story green place that burned down. I’d see the treehouse too.

In I would enter, welcome and unannounced. I’d sit and I’d talk with my aunt and my uncle. He never served in the military, but he is the last surviving member of the original local EMS. He was the oldest of his siblings, and as such would remember grandpa better. Grandpa was in WWII.

If you thought I’d have I dry eye, or if I would cry, the truth I will not deny. I would choke up, I would tear, as I remembered yesteryear.